What is the Torah view on the dinosaurs? There's no mention of them in the Torah, only that the world was created in 6 days. If they existed, Adam and his descendants should have seen them. Yet there's no mention. Yet we know they lived since we find their bones. One cannot say they lived before Adam since the world existed only 5 days before him.

yes, there is a midrash which says God created many worlds and destroyed them. but if that were the case, there would be no bones. since the bones and the world was destroyed. the 6 day account of bereishis is for the creation of THIS world. as we say a clear progression, the world was void, no light, then only water, then moon/stars. so we see that before 6 days there could not be any bones
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rayOct 12 '12 at 8:10

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I don't understand the argument of "There's no mention of them in the Torah, only that the world was created in 6 days. If they existed, Adam and his descendants should have seen them. Yet there's no mention.". There's no mention of mosquitoes or zebras either. So what?
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msh210♦Oct 12 '12 at 8:12

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I don't think that the medrash which says the earlier worlds were destroyed means that no trace of them can exist.
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DannoOct 12 '12 at 12:34

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I heard that the Tiferes Yisrael addresses this in his "Drush Or HaChayim" (printed in the back of standard Tiferes Yisrael editions of mishnah Nezikin vol. 1), but I never actually read all of it (but I did see a few lines of it, and they include references to animals such as טערודעקטיילס and סטגאסאורוס)
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b aOct 12 '12 at 16:29

3 Answers
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Prof. Nathan Aviezer wrote a book "בראשית ברא" answering questions about the creation in torah view.

There he claims the 6 days of creation to be 6 periods of time that didn't necessarily last 24 hours. Moreover - maybe it was one cycle of dark&light, but things happened at a quicker pace.

Take, for example, a person's growth. If you were to calculate the rate of growth during his first two years, you would conclude that at the age of 20 he'd be as tall as a skyscraper. Similarly, scientists calculate age of things according to he worlds' pace today, but things may have worked differently in the past.

Hence, dinosaurs might have lived and died prior to Adam Harishon. Maybe created on "day" 5 and extinct before 6.

The Malbim (on Noach 7:23) addresses "large animals" that couldn't be "wiped out" by the flood, but were buried in depths of the earth following quakes the Mabul created. He is clearly addressing dinosaurs since he's talking about (my free translation): "... geologists who dig and find large animals who have become extinct, they use this to show earth existed long before Bereshis creation..."

Some attribute "התנינים הגדולים" (Bereshis 1:21) to the dinosaurs as a reference of their existing (not mentioned in Malbim).

Another opinion I've heard from reliable people (suggested by the Lubavitcher Rebbe in this letter) is that the world was created "old", such as Adam Harishon was created as a man of 20 and not a newborn baby. Hence, dinosaurs could have either existed - or their remains and footprints were melded into the creation.

maybe but to say the 6 days of creation are 6 periods of time is "Dochek" (a stretch). furthermore, the sabbath of creation is one day. nobody claims that it was a "period of time". and the world's birthday according to the calendars is 23rd of elul
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rayOct 14 '12 at 9:18

@RaymondSebag, as the answer notes, Hashem might have done millions of years within 24 hours. Shabbos was completion of work not necessarily a day in itself. Further, "days" might have not been equal in time (the way we define it) so maybe when Shabbos arrived it really was one day. P.S. World's birthday = Elul 25th
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JNFOct 14 '12 at 10:32

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@RaymondSebag And does the fact that we have dinosaur bones that appear millions of years old not qualify as Shaat HaDechak?
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Double AA♦Dec 3 '12 at 7:44

In the sefer "Q&A Thursday Nights With Rabbi Avigdor Miller" Volume 2, pg 284, he was asked why were the dinosaurs and the mastodon not saved from the mabul? He answered simply because there was no room for them on the teivah (ark) .He said that all species fit but the extra big ones simply didn't fit.

Taninim Hagedolim can possibly mean dinosaurs. The word Tanin means a reptile or serpent (like when Aharon's stick become a sepent - Vayehi l'tanin. The dinosaurs were reptiles. See Dr. Schroeder's "The Science of G-d" which discusses this.